They hailed from some of the most prestigious colleges across thecountry – Columbia, Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Harvard and Yale – but these stellar
collegiates found themselves back in school this summer.

These college students were selected for the increasingly coveted
internship with Breakthrough New York. Selected from among 650 applicants,
these 40 teacher interns spent six weeks teaching high-achieving middle-school
students.

“Every time someone asks me about my summer I tell them it was the best
summer of my life,” says Reginald Hutchins, a 20-year-old junior at Morehouse
College in Atlanta, Georgia.

As a middle school student himself, Hutchins participated in the
Breakthrough program in his hometown of Atlanta. Last summer, he interned in
New York City’s Breakthrough program, an experience that prompted him to return
again this year.

This summer proved to be an intensive, exhilarating triumph of hard
work, diligence and persistence. Before entering the classroom, teacher interns
undergo several weeks of instruction.

“We went through these really long training modules. It’s all theory,
what may happen, what might happen. Stepping into the classroom was rough
because it was like 17 children staring at you expecting you to teach them
something,” he said.

He immediately overcame any initial jitters, as he and a fellow teacher
intern he was paired with broke down lessons into manageable tasks, and worked
individually with students, which he said were enthusiastically proactive.

“The Breakthrough community is like no other community. We have this
thing where we say that after you leave Breakthrough you go through
withdrawal,” he said. “It’s an unparalleled experience.”

One that already has changed the course of his life and career. As the program concluded, he received
Breakthrough’s Maureen Yusuf-Morales Teaching Excellence Award, which
recognizes one Intern at each site whose performance as an instructor and role
model excelled beyond expectations.

And, shortly after returning to Atlanta after his first summer
internship in New York Hutchins changed his major to sociology, and then this
year he switched his minor to educational studies.

“Everyone in the Breakthrough community is really invested not only in
the students but in us, so that we can become the best teachers that we can,”
he said. “The Breakthrough community is really invested not only in the
students but in us, so that we can become the best teachers that we can.”

While Hutchins received the award for his work at the Manhattan site,
the award in Brooklyn went to Johnneca Johnson, a 21-year-old senior at the
University of Cincinnati.

Johnson is majoring in early childhood education. This wasn’t her
original choice of a major. She had performed internships in the legal and
medical fields. But they never seemed to click.

She then interned with Breakthrough New York in Cincinnati in 2010,
drawn to it because she, too, had been a Breakthrough student in her home city.
Like her intern colleague Hutchins, she was drawn to the Big Apple this summer.

“My first day in the classroom, I went over the rules with my students
and got to know them,” she said. “They made me feel very comfortable, and after
that it was all uphill from there.”

Breakthrough students are high-achieving, but often economic and
geographic odds force them into lower performing classrooms in the city,
leading their families to turn to Breakthrough for support in continuing on a high-achieving path
that leads to a selective four-year college.

Johnson witnessed the drive that many of these students harbor from that
first day in class. This was matched by the devotion of her fellow teacher
interns, and the staff, she said. “I feel like I have 30 new best friends,” she
said of the teacher interns.

“I chose New York City because I heard they were a well-oiled machine
and were leading all of the other Breakthrough sites,” she said. “I have never
met a more motivated and passionate staff. They really want the teachers to be
the best of the best. They want the whole program to succeed. It was a great
experience to know that the people above me were working 10 times as hard as I
am.”

Her experience is already paying off. She has now been accepted into the
Teach for America program in Jacksonville, Florida. Her ultimate goal is to
return to New York City, and Brooklyn specifically.

“I really want to come back to Breakthrough New York and help,” she
said. “The connections we built with students and teachers and staff will last
forever. It’s going to be a lifetime relationship.”

A healthy number of teacher interns are former Breakthrough students.
Timothy Garcia is another example of Breakthrough’s impact. He was a
Breakthrough New York student, enrolled because he wanted an extra push to
“take charge” of his academic success.

Now a senior at Middlebury College in Vermont, he interned last summer,
and returned to the classroom this one. He sought those opportunities because
of a classroom exercise he took part in as a Breakthrough student, when he was
instructed to deliver a 10-minute presentation on a subject.

“I really just wanted to be on the other side of the classroom,” he
said. “It’s been amazing. They challenge you in every single way. The
Breakthrough program teaches you how to be a professional, how to work on a
team, how to deal with stress.”

The opportunity similarly imparted lessons on the struggle that many
teachers face in meeting the needs of a diverse group of students, and equally
attending to all. “You appreciate how much work that teachers are doing, how
much work it takes to put the program together,” he said. “You are preparing
lesson plans, organizing special events. I definitely learned about
sustainability.”

Garcia taught 9th grade literature to students that were
poised to enter the 9th grade, working with two groups of 14
students each. Each day, he made sure to consider each individual student’s
needs and progress. “You need to make sure you don’t burn out being able to give
every student an equal amount of attention and that no student is left out,” he
said. “You must be able to reach everyone.”

In the end, he said, Breakthrough New York not only shapes the lives of
their middle school charges but of his colleagues. It changes career
trajectories, and mindsets as well.

“Going through the Breakthrough summer you definitely learn about
yourself, how you work with others, how you feel when tested and when you face
adversity,” Garcia said. “You learn that not everything is easy. Sometimes you
fail, and that in itself makes you stronger. It’s a very challenging summer,
and you grow as a person.”